Shipping Container Size Chart: All 17 Containers

The four characters printed after the container number on the doors are its size and type code under ISO 6346: the first gives the length, the second the height, the third and fourth the type. 42G1 marks a standard-height 40 ft and 45G1 a 40 ft high cube, so the second character is the one to read when the height matters.

A 45 ft high cube is 13.716 m (45′) long and coded L5G1, or 55G1 on some newer boxes: the 1995 edition coded 45 ft as L, the 2022 edition as 5, and most boxes still carry the L. The US domestic 48 ft and 53 ft have no ISO code. The check digit calculator decodes any code typed after a number.

A 40 ft container’s door opens 2.340 × 2.280 m (7′8″ × 7′6″), per 13 of 16 sheets; a 40 ft high cube’s 2.340 × 2.585 m (7′8″ × 8′6″), per 13 of 19 sheets. The door, not the inside, decides whether a machine or a crate gets in at all. Each container has three sets of dimensions, and mixing them up is the most common ordering error: the outside is the ISO envelope that the ship slot, the chassis, the crane spreader and your site deal with; the inside is what the cargo gets; the door opening is smaller again.

The gaps are structure, not rounding. On a 20 ft the door assembly and the end frame take 160 mm of length, the corrugated side walls 86 mm of width, and the floor and the roof 198 mm of height; the floor is 28 mm of plywood on steel cross-members. The container door dimensions guide gives every door, size by size.

2,438 mm (8 ft) outside and 2,352 mm (92.6 in) inside for the 20 ft to the 45 ft, and 2,350 mm inside the 10 ft. Width is the one dimension that never changes with length: a 10 ft and a 45 ft are the same 8 ft across. The door frame narrows the opening further, so the door is the tightest of the three widths a load has to pass.

Two families sit outside that figure. US domestic 48 ft and 53 ft units are 2,591 mm wide, built for road freight rather than ship cells. European pallet-wide boxes push the inside to about 2,420 mm on a 40 ft high cube, from one sheet (DP World). ISO 668 covers neither, and neither interlocks in a standard cell guide.

The inside width decides more loading plans than any other figure on this page. Two EUR pallets side by side need 2,400 mm and the inside gives 2,352 mm, so they do not fit abreast. That one shortfall is why a 20 ft takes 11 EUR pallets in a tier rather than the 14 a floor 2,400 mm wide would take; the pallet layout for a 20 ft shows the pattern.

Floor area is the figure most people are after when they measure a box for a workshop, a store room or a build. A 20 ft gives 149 ft² (13.9 m²) and a 40 ft 305 ft² (28.3 m²), twice the floor of the twenty almost exactly. A 40 ft takes 25 EUR or 21 US pallets in one tier; the pallets in a 40 ft guide draws both layouts.

Read the height column with one caveat. The inside height is measured to the lowest point of the roof structure, not to the roof sheet, so a tall crate has to clear the cross-members. Floor area holds everywhere: the walls are vertical, and the floor is flat from the door to the front wall.

ISO 668 fixes the outside: one width, two heights and four lengths, 2,991 / 6,058 / 12,192 / 13,716 mm for the 10 / 20 / 40 / 45 ft. The 40 ft is 76 mm longer than two twenties, the gap that lets two 20 ft boxes sit in one 40 ft ship slot with clearance between their corner castings.

The standard allows manufacturing tolerance in the minus direction only: 0 to −10 mm on the length of a 40 ft, 0 to −6 mm on a 20 ft, and 0 to −5 mm on width and height, per GOST R 51876-2008, GOST R 53350-2009 and IS 6566:2001. No container may exceed the nominal envelope, which is why boxes built decades apart stack on each other worldwide. The inside is not standardised: ISO 1496 sets only minimums, so a given 40 ft may be a few millimetres roomier than the 12.032 × 2.352 × 2.393 m in the chart. The details, with the 48 ft and 53 ft domestic exceptions, are in the ISO standards guide.

When a spec sheet disagrees with this chart by an inch or two, check which way it rounded: marketing pages often round inside dimensions up. Cargo planning should round down; a crate cut to “7 ft 9 in because the container is 8 ft wide” will not load.

Three weights describe every container. Tare is the empty box: about 2,230 kg for a 20 ft (the published sheets print 2,080–2,570 kg), 3,700 kg for a 40 ft and 3,830 kg for a 40 ft HC. Max gross is the rating on the CSC plate: 30,480 kg for a typical 20 ft and 32,500 kg for most of today’s 40 ft boxes and high cubes. Payload is max gross less tare, so 28,250 kg for the 20 ft and 28,800 kg for the 40 ft. The forty carries twice the volume for only about 550 kg more cargo, and an older forty rated 30,480 kg carries 26,480–26,840 kg on its sheets, less than a twenty.

The weights marked on the doors of each unit are the ones that count, and road limits usually bind long before the container’s rating does. On a US Interstate the 80,000 lb (36.3 t) vehicle limit, per 23 CFR 658.17, leaves room for about 38,000 lb (17,236 kg) of cargo in a 20 ft on a standard chassis by US lines’ guidelines, far below the box’s 30,480 kg rating. The container weight guide breaks the weights down by size.

The CSC plate also says how high a box may be stacked. ISO 1496-1 as written in 1990 tests a box under 192,000 kg superimposed, eight 24,000 kg boxes above it in the nine-high stack its table note describes, times the 1.8 that allows for a ship’s motion; each corner post carries 86,400 kg, a quarter of it. The amended standard, as IS 13288 (Part 1) and ГОСТ Р 51876-2008 print it, raises the superimposed mass to 213,360 kg and drops the nine-high note, and a box cleared for heavier stacks says so on its plate. The whole load passes through the four corner castings, so on land a box stands corner on corner, and its foundation needs bearing only at the four corners.

Every length in the chart comes in up to two heights. A general purpose (GP, “standard”) box is 2,591 mm (8′6″) high outside and a high cube (HC) 2,896 mm (9′6″), 305 mm (1 ft) more and all of it usable: 2.393 m against 2.698 m inside. Footprint and width are the same, and the high cube’s door is taller by as much.

The extra foot adds 8.7 m³ to a 40 ft (67.7 → 76.4 m³) at nearly the same cost, which is why the 40 ft HC is the usual choice for light, bulky cargo and for building. Every 45 ft and every US domestic 48 ft and 53 ft is high-cube height.

The lower rows of the chart reuse the standard outsides with different structures, and each trades something for its speciality. The reefer spends inside room on insulation and machinery: a 40 ft HC reefer holds 67.5 m³ against the dry 40 ft HC’s 76.4 m³ and is 2.290 m wide inside instead of 2.352, yet its 34,000 kg max gross still leaves a strong 29,380 kg payload. The 20 ft open top gives up 45 mm of inside height to its removable bows but loads by crane from above.

The flat rack has no walls and makes up for it in structure: the 40 ft flat rack is rated to 45,000 kg max gross and carries 40,000 kg of machinery or steel on a reinforced floor. The tank is a vessel of about 25,000 L in a 20 ft frame, rated 36,000 kg gross; its sheets print 20,000–26,000 L.

Special types buy capability with volume (the reefer, the open top) or with universality, since the flat rack and the tank need special handling and stowage, and their tares run 1–63% above the dry box of the same length. If the cargo fits a dry container, a dry container is the cheapest slot. The types of shipping containers guide compares every type.